As an English major, you will read and write about authors who have shaped the consciousness of the English-speaking world over the millennia, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, J. R. R. Tolkien, Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, and Salman Rushdie. By doing so, you participate in the preservation of human aesthetic achievement for future generations, and you also practice critical reading and writing skills necessary to negotiate a complex world. You learn, for instance, about perspectives on the human condition from authors whose life experiences are completely different from your own, which leads to a greater ability to empathize and interact with others (a highly valued skill in today’s workplace).

Ultimately, reading and writing are forms of considerable power. As the British Romantic poet Percy Shelley once put it, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.” As an English major, you will learn how to exert your rhetorical power responsibly in whatever world you find yourself.

Publishing Internships: Two of the top journals in literary studies (MFS: Modern Fiction Studies and Arthuriana) are at Purdue. Both offer opportunities for undergraduates to be involved in the world of scholarly publishing.

Study Abroad: Develop an international perspective while earning degree credit. Recently, faculty members have taken students to London, Paris, and Venice.

New career preparation course, "Beyond English," which helps students translate the worth of their degree to the world beyond the university. It provides them with tools to articulate their achievements as they prepare for their professional and adult lives.

Our courses enable all students, from English to Engineering majors, to grapple with questions of representation and human existence, all the while imparting the skills that they will be able to use in any career they choose!